Porsche (POAHY) has a market cap of 15B, no debt, and a tangible book value of 34.6B which is almost all Volkswagen stock. It's crazy. Why doesn't some activist investor make them distribute that stock as a dividend? POAHY usually trades at 60% of tangible book value, but now it's trading at 45%.
They are great engineers. That's for sure. It probably has something to do with how the company is run and the ownership structure. Shareholder unfriendly. Mostly bottom tier funds own it. Even the crappiest American companies have notable shareholders.
VW Group became the parent of Porsche in 2011. Porsche had actually made a run at VW and the 2008/9 recession murdered them and their backing for the acquisition TLTR, but it's a great story if you want to the research.
I remember the day the whole world was down like 10percent and the DAX was up. I think several vol funds made their year on dispersion that day.
Did you get involved in that trade? It was wicked! Had a different position back then, but the industry talk was it murdered a bunch of risk/arb books. Were you in it?
I think if Trump is re-elected, he will turn his trade wars toward Germany. He hates the Nord Stream 2 and is trying to bring US auto manufacturing back to US. Who knows. If Biden is elected he may want to do similar. I'm not sure I would buy any German stocks